PART I.

Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team.

THE TRUTH ABOUT JESUS IS HE A MYTH?

ILLUSTRATED

_M. M. Mangasarian_

[Illustration: Woman Crucified. In the Church of St. Etienne, France.

For a Long Time This Bearded Woman Was Supposed to be the Christ]

_If it is not historically true that such and such things happened

in Palestine eighteen centuries ago, what becomes of Christianity?

--Thomas Huxley._

CONTENTS

PART I

A PARABLE

IN CONFIDENCE

IS JESUS A MYTH?

THE PROBLEM STATED

THE CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS

VIRGIN BIRTHS

THE ORIGIN OF THE CROSS

SILENCE OF CONTEMPORARY WRITERS

THE STORY OF JESUS A RELIGIOUS DRAMA

THE JESUS OF PAUL NOT THE JESUS OF THE GOSPELS

IS CHRISTIANITY REAL?

PART II

IS THE WORLD INDEBTED TO CHRISTIANITY?

PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY, OR CHRISTIANITY

NOT SUITED TO WESTERN RACES

PART III

SOME MODERN OPINIONS OF JESUS

A RHETORICAL JESUS

"WE OWE EVERYTHING TO JESUS"

A LIBERAL JEW PRAISES JESUS

APPENDIX--REPLIES TO CLERICAL CRITICS

_By education most have been misled,

So they believe because they were so bred;

The priest continues what the nurse began,

And thus the child imposes on the man_.

DRYDEN.

PREFACE

The following work offers in book form the series of studies on the

question of the historicity of Jesus, presented from time to time

before the Independent Religious Society in Orchestra Hall. No effort

has been made to change the manner of the spoken, into the more

regular form of the written, word.

M. M. MANGASARIAN.

ORCHESTRA HALL

CHICAGO

[Illustration: Picture in Herculaneum, of the Days of Pompeii, Showing

Cupid Crowned with a Cross.]

PART I.

A PARABLE

I am today twenty-five hundred years old. I have been dead for nearly

as many years. My place of birth was Athens; my grave was not far from

those of Xenophon and Plato, within view of the white glory of Athens

and the shimmering waters of the Aegean sea.

After sleeping in my grave for many centuries I awoke suddenly--I

cannot tell how nor why--and was transported by a force beyond my

control to this new day and this new city. I arrived here at daybreak,

when the sky was still dull and drowsy. As I approached the city I

heard bells ringing, and a little later I found the streets astir with

throngs of well dressed people in family groups wending their way

hither and thither. Evidently they were not going to work, for they

were accompanied by their children in their best clothes, and a

pleasant expression was upon their faces.

"This must be a day of festival and worship, devoted to one of their

gods," I murmured to myself.

Looking about me I saw a gentleman in a neat black dress, smiling, and

his hand extended to me with great cordiality. He must have realized I

was a stranger and wished to tender his hospitality to me. I accepted

it gratefully. I clasped his hand. He pressed mine. We gazed for a

moment silently into each other's eyes. He understood my bewilderment

amid my novel surroundings, and offered to enlighten me. He explained

to me the ringing of the bells and the meaning of the holiday crowds

moving in the streets. It was Sunday--Sunday before Christmas, and the

people were going to "the House of God."

"Of course you are going there, too," I said to my friendly guide.

"Yes," he answered, "I conduct the worship. I am a priest."

"A priest of Apollo?" I interrogated.

"No, no," he replied, raising his hand to command silence, "Apollo is

not a god; he was only an idol."

"An idol?" I whispered, taken by surprise.

"I perceive you are a Greek," he said to me, "and the Greeks," he

continued, "notwithstanding their distinguished accomplishments, were

an idolatrous people. They worshipped gods that did not exist. They

built temples to divinities which were merely empty names--empty

names," he repeated. "Apollo and Athene--and the entire Olympian lot

were no more than inventions of the fancy."

"But the Greeks loved their gods," I protested, my heart clamoring in

my breast.

"They were not gods, they were idols, and the difference between a god

and an idol is this: an idol is a thing; God is a living being. When

you cannot prove the existence of your god, when you have never seen

him, nor heard his voice, nor touched him--when you have nothing

provable about him, he is an idol. Have you seen Apollo? Have you

heard him? Have you touched him?"

"No," I said, in a low voice.

"Do you know of any one who has?"

I had to admit that I did not.

"He was an idol, then, and not a god."

"But many of us Greeks," I said, "have felt Apollo in our hearts and

have been inspired by him."

"You imagine you have," returned my guide. "If he were really divine

he would be living to this day."

"Is he, then, dead?" I asked.

"He never lived; and for the last two thousand years or more his

temple has been a heap of ruins."

I wept to hear that Apollo, the god of light and music, was no

more--that his fair temple had fallen into ruins and the fire upon his

altar had been extinguished; then, wiping a tear from my eyes, I said,

"Oh, but our gods were fair and beautiful; our religion was rich and

picturesque. It made the Greeks a nation of poets, orators, artists,

warriors, thinkers. It made Athens a city of light; it created the

beautiful, the true, the good--yes, our religion was divine."

"It had only one fault," interrupted my guide.

"What was that?" I inquired, without knowing what his answer would be.

"It was not true."

"But I still believe in Apollo," I exclaimed; "he is not dead, I know

he is alive."

"Prove it," he said to me; then, pausing for a moment, "if you produce

him," he said, "we shall all fall down and worship him. Produce Apollo

and he shall be our god."

"Produce him!" I whispered to myself. "What blasphemy!" Then, taking

heart, I told my guide how more than once I had felt Apollo's radiant

presence in my heart, and told him of the immortal lines of Homer

concerning the divine Apollo. "Do you doubt Homer?" I said to him;

"Homer, the inspired bard? Homer, whose inkwell was as big as the sea;

whose imperishable page was Time? Homer, whose every word was a drop

of light?" Then I proceeded to quote from Homer's _Iliad_, the Greek

Bible, worshipped by all the Hellenes as the rarest Manuscript between

heaven and earth. I quoted his description of Apollo, than whose lyre

nothing is more musical, than whose speech even honey is not sweeter.

I recited how his mother went from town to town to select a worthy

place to give birth to the young god, son of Zeus, the Supreme Being,

and how he was born and cradled amid the ministrations of all the

goddesses, who bathed him in the running stream and fed him with

nectar and ambrosia from Olympus. Then I recited the lines which

picture Apollo bursting his bands, leaping forth from his cradle, and

spreading his wings like a swan, soaring sunward, declaring that he

had come to announce to mortals the will of God. "Is it possible," I

asked, "that all this is pure fabrication, a fantasy of the brain, as

unsubstantial as the air? No, no, Apollo is not an idol. He is a god,

and the son of a god. The whole Greek world will bear me witness that

I am telling the truth." Then I looked at my guide to see what

impression this outburst of sincere enthusiasm had produced upon him,

and I saw a cold smile upon his lips that cut me to the heart. It

seemed as if he wished to say to me, "You poor deluded pagan! You are

not intelligent enough to know that Homer was only a mortal after all,

and that he was writing a play in which he manufactured the gods of

whom he sang--that these gods existed only in his imagination, and

that today they are as dead as is their inventor--the poet."

By this time we stood at the entrance of a large edifice which my

guide said was "the House of God." As we walked in I saw innumerable

little lights blinking and winking all over the spacious interior.

There were, besides, pictures, altars and images all around me. The

air was heavy with incense; a number of men in gorgeous vestments were

passing to and fro, bowing and kneeling before the various lights and

images. The audience was upon its knees enveloped in silence--a

silence so solemn that it awed me. Observing my anxiety to understand

the meaning of all this, my guide took me aside and in a whisper told

me that the people were celebrating the anniversary of the birthday of

their beautiful Savior--Jesus, the Son of God.

"So was Apollo the son of God," I replied, thinking perhaps that after

all we might find ourselves in agreement with one another.

"Forget Apollo," he said, with a suggestion of severity in his voice.

"There is no such person. He was only an idol. If you were to search

for Apollo in all the universe you would never find any one answering

to his name or description. Jesus," he resumed, "is the Son of God. He

came to our earth and was born of a virgin."

Again I was tempted to tell my guide that that was how Apollo became

incarnate; but I restrained myself.

"Then Jesus grew up to be a man," continued my guide, "performing

unheard-of wonders, such as treading the seas, giving sight, hearing

and speech to the blind, the deaf and the dumb, converting water into

wine, feeding the multitudes miraculously, predicting coming events

and resurrecting the dead."

"Of course, of your gods, too," he added, "it is claimed that they

performed miracles, and of your oracles that they foretold the future,

but there is this difference--the things related of your gods are a

fiction, the things told of Jesus are a fact, and the difference

between Paganism and Christianity is the difference between fiction

and fact."

Just then I heard a wave of murmur, like the rustling of leaves in a

forest, sweep over the bowed audience. I turned about and

unconsciously, my Greek curiosity impelling me, I pushed forward

toward where the greater candle lights were blazing. I felt that

perhaps the commotion in the house was the announcement that the God

Jesus was about to make his appearance, and I wanted to see him. I

wanted to touch him, or, if the crowd were too large to allow me that

privilege, I wanted, at least, to hear his voice. I, who had never

seen a god, never touched one, never heard one speak, I who had

believed in Apollo without ever having known anything provable about

him, I wanted to see the real God, Jesus.

But my guide placed his hand quickly upon my shoulder, and held me

back.

"I want to see Jesus," I hastened, turning toward him. I said this

reverently and in good faith. "Will he not be here this morning? Will

he not speak to his worshippers?" I asked again. "Will he not permit

them to touch him, to caress his hand, to clasp his divine feet, to

inhale the ambrosial fragrance of his breath, to bask in the golden

light of his eyes, to hear the music of his immaculate accents? Let

me, too, see Jesus," I pleaded.

"You cannot see him," answered my guide, with a trace of embarrassment

in his voice. "He does not show himself any more."

I was too much surprised at this to make any immediate reply.

"For the last two thousand years," my guide continued, "it has not

pleased Jesus to show himself to any one; neither has he been heard

from for the same number of years."

"For two thousand years no one has either seen or heard Jesus?" I

asked, my eyes filled with wonder and my voice quivering with

excitement.

"No," he answered.

"Would not that, then," I ventured to ask, impatiently, "make Jesus as

much of an idol as Apollo? And are not these people on their knees

before a god of whose existence they are as much in the dark as were

the Greeks of fair Apollo, and of whose past they have only rumors

such as Homer reports of our Olympian gods--as idolatrous as the

Athenians? What would you say," I asked my guide, "if I were to demand

that you should produce Jesus and prove him to my eyes and ears as you

have asked me to produce and prove Apollo? What is the difference

between a ceremony performed in honor of Apollo and one performed in

honor of Jesus, since it is as impossible to give oracular

demonstration of the existence of the one as of the other? If Jesus is

alive and a god, and Apollo is an idol and dead, what is the evidence,

since the one is as invisible, as inaccessible, and as unproducible as

the other? And, if faith that Jesus is a god proves him a god, why

will not faith in Apollo make him a god? But if worshipping Jesus,

whom for the best part of the last two thousand years no man has seen,

heard or touched; if building temples to him, burning incense upon his

altars, bowing at his shrine and calling him "God," is not idolatry,

neither is it idolatry to kindle fire upon the luminous altars of the

Greek Apollo,--God of the dawn, master of the enchanted lyre--he with

the bow and arrow tipped with fire! I am not denying," I said, "that

Jesus ever lived. He may have been alive two thousand years ago, but

if he has not been heard from since, if the same thing that happened

to the people living at the time he lived has happened to him, namely--if

he is dead, then you are worshipping the dead, which fact stamps

your religion as idolatrous."

And, then, remembering what he had said to me about the Greek

mythology being beautiful but not true, I said to him: "Your temples

are indeed gorgeous and costly; your music is grand; your altars are

superb; your litany is exquisite; your chants are melting; your

incense, and bells and flowers, your gold and silver vessels are all

in rare taste, and I dare say your dogmas are subtle and your

preachers eloquent, but your religion has one fault--_it is not

true_."

[Illustration: Swastika. Earlier Form of the Cross. ]

[Illustration: The Lamb in the Holy Sepulchre, Mosaic of the IV

Century, Sarcophagus of Luc de Bearn. Showing the Lamb on the Cross.]

IN CONFIDENCE

I shall speak in a straightforward way, and shall say today what

perhaps I should say tomorrow, or ten years from now,--but shall say

it today, because I cannot keep it back, because I have nothing better

to say than the truth, or what I hold to be the truth. But why seek

truths that are not pleasant? We cannot help it. No man can suppress

the truth. Truth finds a crack or crevice to crop out of; it bobs up

to the surface and all the volume and weight of waters can not keep it

down. Truth prevails! Life, death, truth--behold, these three no power

can keep back. And since we are doomed to know the truth, let us

cultivate a love for it. It is of no avail to cry over lost illusions,

to long for vanished dreams, or to call to the departing gods to come

back. It may be pleasant to play with toys and dolls all our life, but

evidently we are not meant to remain children always. The time comes

when we must put away childish things and obey the summons of truth,

stern and high. A people who fear the truth can never he a free

people. If what I will say is the truth, do you know of any good

reason why I should not say it? And if for prudential reasons I should

sometimes hold back the truth, how would you know _when_ I am telling

what I believe to be the truth, and when I am holding it back for

reasons of policy?

The truth, however unwelcome, is not injurious; it is error which

raises false hopes, which destroys, degrades and pollutes, and which,

sooner or later, must be abandoned. Was it not Spencer, whom Darwin

called "our great philosopher," who said, "Repulsive as is its aspect,

the hard fact which dissipates a cherished illusion is presently found

to contain the germ of a more salutary belief?" Spain is decaying

today because her teachers, for policy's sake, are withholding the

disagreeable truth from the people. Holy water and sainted bones can

give a nation illusions and dreams, but never,--strength.

A difficult subject is in the nature of a challenge to the mind. One

difficult task attempted is worth a thousand commonplace efforts

completed. The majority of people avoid the difficult and fear danger.

But he who would progress must even court danger. Political and

religious liberty were discovered through peril and struggle. The

world owes its emancipation to human daring. Had Columbus feared

danger, America might have slept for another thousand years.

I have a difficult subject in hand. It is also a delicate one. But I

am determined not only to know, if it is possible, the whole truth

about Jesus, but also to communicate that truth to others. Some people

can keep their minds shut. I cannot; I must share my intellectual life

with the world. If I lived a thousand years ago, I might have

collapsed at the sight of the burning stake, but I feel sure I would

have deserved the stake.

People say to me, sometimes, "Why do you not confine yourself to moral

and religious exhortation, such as, 'Be kind, do good, love one

another, etc.'?" But there is more of a moral tonic in the open and

candid discussion of a subject like the one in hand, than in a

multitude of platitudes. We feel our moral fiber stiffen into force

and purpose under the inspiration of a peril dared for the advancement

of truth.

"Tell us what you believe," is one of the requests frequently

addressed to me. I never deliver a lecture in which I do not, either

directly or indirectly, give full and free expression to my faith in

everything that is worthy of faith. If I do not believe in dogma, it

is because I believe in freedom. If I do not believe in one inspired

book, it is because I believe that all truth and only truth is

inspired. If I do not ask the gods to help us, it is because I believe

in human help, so much more real than supernatural help. If I do not

believe in standing still, it is because I believe in progress. If I

am not attracted by the vision of a distant heaven, it is because I

believe in human happiness, now and here. If I do not say "Lord,

Lord!" to Jesus, it is because I bow my head to a greater Power than

Jesus, to a more efficient Savior than he has ever been--Science!

"Oh, he tears down, but does not build up," is another criticism about

my work. It is not true. No preacher or priest is more constructive.

To build up their churches and maintain their creeds the priests

pulled down and destroyed the magnificent civilization of Greece and

Rome, plunging Europe into the dark and sterile ages which lasted over

a thousand years. When Galileo waved his hands for joy because he

believed he had enriched humanity with a new truth and extended the

sphere of knowledge, what did the church do to him? It conspired to

destroy him. It shut him up in a dungeon! Clapping truth into jail;

gagging the mouth of the student--is that building up or tearing down?

When Bruno lighted a new torch to increase the light of the world,

what was his reward? The stake! During all the ages that the church

had the power to police the world, every time a thinker raised his

head he was clubbed to death. Do you think it is kind of us--does it

square with our sense of justice to call the priest constructive, and

the scientists and philosophers who have helped people to their

feet--helped them to self-government in politics, and to self-help in

life,--destructive? Count your rights--political, religious, social,

intellectual--and tell me which of them was conquered for you by the

priest.

"He is irreverent," is still another hasty criticism I have heard

advanced against the rationalist. I wish to tell you something. But

first let us be impersonal. The epithets "irreverent," "blasphemer,"

"atheist," and "infidel," are flung at a man, not from pity, but from

envy. Not having the courage or the industry of our neighbor who works

like a busy bee in the world of men and books, searching with the sweat

of his brow for the real bread of life, wetting the open page before

him with his tears, pushing into the "wee" hours of the night his

quest, animated by the fairest of all loves, "the love of truth",--we

ease our own indolent conscience by calling him names. We pretend

that it is not because we are too lazy or too selfish to work as hard

or think as freely as he does, but because we do not want to be as

irreverent as he is that we keep the windows of our minds shut. To

excuse our own mediocrity we call the man who tries to get out of the

rut a "blasphemer." And so we ask the world to praise our indifference

as a great virtue, and to denounce the conscientious toil and thought

of another, as "blasphemy."

[Illustration: The Lamb Standing Upon the Gospels. VIII Century.]

IS JESUS A MYTH?

What is a myth? A myth is a fanciful explanation of a given

phenomenon. Observing the sun, the moon, and the stars overhead, the

primitive man wished to account for them. This was natural. The mind

craves for knowledge. The child asks questions because of an inborn

desire to know. Man feels ill at ease with a sense of a mental vacuum,

until his questions are answered. Before the days of science, a

fanciful answer was all that could be given to man's questions about

the physical world. The primitive man guessed where knowledge failed

him--what else could he do? A myth, then, is a guess, a story, a

speculation, or a fanciful explanation of a phenomenon, in the absence

of accurate information.

Many are the myths about the heavenly bodies, which, while we call

them myths, because we know better, were to the ancients truths. The

Sun and Moon were once brother and sister, thought the child-man; but

there arose a dispute between them; the woman ran away, and the man

ran after her, until they came to the end of the earth where land and

sky met. The woman jumped into the sky, and the man after her, where

they kept chasing each other forever, as Sun and Moon. Now and then

they came close enough to snap at each other. That was their

explanation of an eclipse. (Childhood of the World.--Edward Clodd.)

With this mythus, the primitive man was satisfied, until his

developing intelligence realized its inadequacy. Science was born of

that realization.

During the middle ages it was believed by Europeans that in certain

parts of the world, in India, for instance, there were people who had

only one eye in the middle of their foreheads, and were more like

monsters than humans. This was imaginary knowledge, which travel and

research have corrected. The myth of a one-eyed people living in India

has been replaced by accurate information concerning the Hindoos.

Likewise, before the science of ancient languages was perfected--before

archaeology had dug up buried cities and deciphered the hieroglyphics

on the monuments of antiquity, most of our knowledge concerning the

earlier ages was mythical, that is to say, it was knowledge not based

on investigation, but made to order. Just as the theologians still

speculate about the other world, primitive man speculated about this

world. Even we moderns, not very long ago, believed, for instance, that

the land of Egypt was visited by ten fantastic plagues; that in one

bloody night every first born in the land was slain; that the angel of

a tribal-god dipped his hand in blood and printed a red mark upon the

doors of the houses of the Jews to protect them from harm; that Pharaoh

and his armies were drowned in the Red Sea; that the children of Israel

wandered for forty years around Mount Sinai; and so forth, and so forth.

But now that we can read the inscriptions on the stone pages dug out of

ancient ruins; now that we can compel a buried world to reveal its

secret and to tell us its story, we do not have to go on making myths

about the ancients. Myths die when history is born.

It will be seen from these examples that there is no harm in myth-

making if the myth is called a myth. It is when we use our fanciful

knowledge to deny or to shut out real and scientific knowledge that

the myth becomes a stumbling block. And this is precisely the use to

which myths have been put. The king with his sword and the priest with

his curses, have supported the myth against science. When a man

_pretends_ to believe that the _Santa Claus_ of his childhood is real,

and tries to compel also others to play a part, he becomes positively

immoral. There is no harm in believing in _Santa Claus_ as a myth, but

there is in pretending that he is real, because such an attitude of

mind makes a mere trifle of truth.

Is Jesus a myth? There is in man a faculty for fiction. Before history

was born, there was myth; before men could think, they dreamed. It was

with the human race in its infancy as it is with the child. The

child's imagination is more active than its reason. It is easier for

it to fancy even than to see. It thinks less than it guesses. This

wild flight of fancy is checked only by experience. It is reflection

which introduces a bit into the mouth of imagination, curbing its pace

and subduing its restless spirit. It is, then, as we grow older, and,

if I may use the word, riper, that we learn to distinguish between

fact and fiction, between history and myth.

In childhood we need playthings, and the more fantastic and _bizarre_

they are, the better we are pleased with them. We dream, for instance,

of castles in the air--gorgeous and clothed with the azure hue of the

skies. We fill the space about and over us with spirits, fairies,

gods, and other invisible and airy beings. We covet the rainbow. We

reach out for the moon. Our feet do not really begin to touch the firm

ground until we have reached the years of discretion.

I know there are those who wish they could always remain children,--living

in dreamland. But even if this were desirable, it is not possible.

Evolution is our destiny; of what use is it, then, to take up arms

against destiny?

Let it be borne in mind that all the religions of the world were born

in the childhood of the race.

Science was not born until man had matured. There is in this thought a

world of meaning.

Children make religions.

Grown up people create science.

The cradle is the womb of all the fairies and faiths of mankind.

The school is the birthplace of science.

Religion is the science of the child.

Science is the religion of the matured man.

In the discussion of this subject, I appeal to the mature, not to

the child mind. I appeal to those who have cultivated a taste for

truth--who are not easily scared, but who can "screw their courage to

the sticking point" and follow to the end truth's leading. The multitude

is ever joined to its idols; let them alone. I speak to the discerning

few.

There is an important difference between a lecturer and an ordained

preacher. The latter can command a hearing in the name of God, or in

the name of the Bible. He does not have to satisfy his hearers about

the reasonableness of what he preaches. He is God's mouthpiece, and no

one may disagree with him. He can also invoke the authority of the

church and of the Christian world to enforce acceptance of his

teaching. The only way I may command your respect is to be reasonable.

You will not listen to me for God's sake, nor for the Bible's sake,

nor yet for the love of heaven, or the fear of hell. My only

protection is to be rational--to be truthful. In other words, the

preacher can afford to ignore common sense in the name of Revelation.

But if I depart from it in the least, or am caught once playing fast

and loose with the facts, I will irretrievably lose my standing.

[Illustration: In Use Upon Heathen Altars Centuries Before

Christianity.] Our answer to the question, Is Jesus a Myth? must

depend more or less upon original research, as there is very little

written on the subject. The majority of writers assume that a person

answering to the description of Jesus lived some two thousand years

ago. Even the few who entertain doubts on the subject, seem to hold

that while there is a large mythical element in the Jesus story,

nevertheless there is a historical nucleus round which has clustered

the elaborate legend of the Christ. In all probability, they argue,

there was a man called Jesus, who said many helpful things, and led an

exemplary life, and all the miracles and wonders represent the

accretions of fond and pious ages.

Let us place ourselves entirely in the hands of the evidence. As far

as possible, let us be passive, showing no predisposition one way or

another. We can afford to be independent. If the evidence proves the

historicity of Jesus, well and good; if the evidence is not sufficient

to prove it, there is no reason why we should fear to say so; besides,

it is our duty to inform ourselves on this question. As intelligent

beings we desire to know whether this Jesus, whose worship is not only

costing the world millions of the people's money, but which is also

drawing to his service the time, the energies, the affection, the

devotion, and the labor of humanity,--is a myth, or a reality. We

believe that all religious persecutions, all sectarian wars, hatreds

and intolerance, which still cramp and embitter our humanity, would be

replaced by love and brotherhood, if the sects could be made to see

that the God-Jesus they are quarreling over is a myth, a shadow to

which credulity alone gives substance. Like people who have been

fighting in the dark, fearing some danger, the sects, once relieved of

the thraldom of a tradition which has been handed down to them by a

childish age and country, will turn around and embrace one another. In

every sense, the subject is an all-absorbing one. It goes to the root

of things; it touches the vital parts, and it means life or death to

the Christian religion.

[Illustration: Ascension of Jesus, Ninth Century.]

[Illustration: Juno Nursing Her Divine Child, Mars.]

THE PROBLEM STATED

Let me now give an idea of the method I propose to follow in the study

of this subject. Let us suppose that a student living in the year 3000

desired to make sure that such a man as Abraham Lincoln really lived

and did the things attributed to him. How would he go about it?

A man must have a birthplace and a birthday. All the records agree as

to where and when Lincoln was born. This is not enough to prove his

historicity, but it is an important link in the chain.

Neither the place nor the time of Jesus' birth is known. There has

never been any unanimity about this matter. There has been

considerable confusion and contradiction about it. It cannot be proved

that the twenty-fifth of December is his birthday. A number of other

dates were observed by the Christian church at various times as the

birthday of Jesus. The Gospels give no date, and appear to be quite

uncertain--really ignorant about it. When it is remembered that the

Gospels purport to have been written by Jesus' intimate companions,

and during the lifetime of his brothers and mother, their silence on

this matter becomes significant. The selection of the twenty-fifth of

December as his birthday is not only an arbitrary one, but that date,

having been from time immemorial dedicated to the Sun, the inference

is that the Son of God and the Sun of heaven enjoying the same

birthday, were at one time identical beings. The fact that Jesus'

death was accompanied with the darkening of the Sun, and that the date

of his resurrection is also associated with the position of the Sun at

the time of the vernal equinox, is a further intimation that we have

in the story of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus, an

ancient and nearly universal Sun-myth, instead of verifiable

historical events. The story of Jesus for three days in the heart of

the earth; of Jonah, three days in the belly of a fish; of Hercules,

three days in the belly of a whale, and of Little Red Riding Hood,

sleeping in the belly of a great black wolf, represent the attempt of

primitive man to explain the phenomenon of Day and Night. The Sun is

swallowed by a dragon, a wolf, or a whale, which plunges the world

into darkness; but the dragon is killed, and the Sun rises triumphant

to make another Day. This ancient Sun myth is the starting point of

nearly all miraculous religions, from the days of Egypt to the

twentieth century.

[Illustration: The Persian God, Mithra. All the Gods Have the Solar

Disc Around Their Heads, Showing That Sun-Worship Was One of the

Earliest Forms of Religion.]

The story which Mathew relates about a remarkable star, which sailing

in the air pointed out to some unnamed magicians the cradle or cave in

which the wonder-child was born, helps further to identify Jesus with

the Sun. What became of this "performing" star, or of the magicians,

and their costly gifts, the records do not say. It is more likely that

it was the astrological predilections of the gospel writer which led

him to assign to his God-child a star in the heavens. The belief that

the stars determine human destinies is a very ancient one. Such

expressions in our language as "ill-starred," "a lucky star,"

"disaster," "lunacy," and so on, indicate the hold which astrology

once enjoyed upon the human mind. We still call a melancholy man,

_Saturnine_; a cheerful man, _Jovial_; a quick-tempered man,

_Mercurial_; showing how closely our ancestors associated the

movements of celestial bodies with human affairs. [Footnote: Childhood

of the World.--Edward Clodd.] The prominence, therefore, of the sun

and stars in the Gospel story tends to show that Jesus is an

astrological rather than a historical character.

That the time of his birth, his death, and supposed resurrection is

_not_ verifiable is generally admitted.

This uncertainty robs the story of Jesus, to an extent at least, of

the atmosphere of reality.

The twenty-fifth of December is celebrated as his birthday. Yet there

is no evidence that he was born on that day. Although the Gospels are

silent as to the date on which Jesus was born, there is circumstantial

evidence in the accounts given of the event to show that the twenty-

fifth of December could not have been his birthday. It snows in

Palestine, though a warmer country, and we know that in December there

are no shepherds tending their flocks in the night time in that

country. Often at this time of the year the fields and hills are

covered with snow. Hence, if the shepherds sleeping in the fields

really saw the heavens open and heard the angel-song, in all

probability it was in some other month of the year, and not late in

December. We know, also, that early in the history of Christianity the

months of May and June enjoyed the honor of containing the day of

Jesus' birth.

[Illustration: Isis Nursing Her Divine Child, 3000 B. C.]

Of course, it is immaterial on which day Jesus was born, but why is it

not known? Yet not only is the date of his birth a matter of

conjecture, but also the year in which he was born. Matthew, one of

the Evangelists, suggests that Jesus was born in King Herod's time,

for it was this king who, hearing from the Magi that a King of the

Jews was born, decided to destroy him; but Luke, another Evangelist,

intimates that Jesus was born when Quirinus was ruler of Judea, which

makes the date of Jesus' birth about fourteen years later than the

date given by Matthew. Why this discrepancy in a historical document,

to say nothing about inspiration? The theologian might say that this

little difficulty was introduced purposely into the scriptures to

establish its infallibility, but it is only religious books that are

pronounced infallible on the strength of the contradictions they

contain.

Again, Matthew says that to escape the evil designs of Herod, Mary and

Joseph, with the infant Jesus, fled into Egypt, Luke says nothing

about this hurried flight, nor of Herod's intention to kill the infant

Messiah. On the contrary he tells us that after the forty days of

purification were over Jesus was publicly presented at the temple,

where Herod, if he really, as Matthew relates, wished to seize him,

could have done so without difficulty. It is impossible to reconcile

the flight to Egypt with the presentation in the temple, and this

inconsistency is certainly insurmountable and makes it look as if the

narrative had no value whatever as history.

When we come to the more important chapters about Jesus, we meet with

greater difficulties. Have you ever noticed that the day on which

Jesus is supposed to have died falls invariably on a Friday? What is

the reason for this? It is evident that nobody knows, and nobody ever

knew the date on which the Crucifixion took place, if it ever took

place. It is so obscure and so mythical that an artificial day has

been fixed by the Ecclesiastical councils. While it is always on a

Friday that the Crucifixion is commemorated, the week in which the day

occurs varies from year to year. "Good Friday" falls not before the

spring equinox, but as soon after the spring equinox as the full moon

allows, thus making the calculation to depend upon the position of the

sun in the Zodiac and the phases of the moon. But that was precisely

the way the day for the festival of the pagan goddess Oestera was

determined. The Pagan Oestera has become the Christian Easter. Does

not this fact, as well as those already touched upon, make the story

of Jesus to read very much like the stories of the Pagan deities.

The early Christians, Origin, for instance, in his reply to the

rationalist Celsus who questioned the reality of Jesus, instead of

producing evidence of a historical nature, appealed to the mythology

of the pagans to prove that the story of Jesus was no more incredible

than those of the Greek and Roman gods. This is so important that we

refer our readers to Origin's own words on the subject. "Before

replying to Celsus, it is necessary to admit that in the matter of

history, however true it might be," writes this Christian Father, "it

is often very difficult and sometimes quite impossible to establish

its truth by evidence which shall be considered sufficient."

[Footnote: Origin _Contre Celse._ 1. 58 et Suiv. Ibid.] This is a

plain admission that as early as the second and third centuries the

claims put forth about Jesus did not admit of positive historical

demonstration. But in the absence of evidence Origin offers the

following metaphysical arguments against the sceptical Celsus: 1. Such

stories as are told of Jesus are admitted to be true when told of

pagan divinities, why can they not also be true when told of the

Christian Messiah? 2. They must be true because they are the

fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. In other words, the only

proofs Origin can bring forth against the rationalistic criticism of

Celsus is, that to deny Jesus would be equivalent to denying both the

Pagan and Jewish mythologies. If Jesus is not real, says Origin, then

Apollo was not real, and the Old Testament prophecies have not been

fulfilled. If we are to have any mythology at all, he seems to argue,

why object to adding to it the mythus of Jesus? There could not be a

more damaging admission than this from one of the most conspicuous

defenders of Jesus' story against early criticism.

Justin Martyr, another early Father, offers the following argument

against unbelievers in the Christian legend: "When we say also that

the Word, which is the first birth of God, was produced without sexual

union, and that he, Jesus Christ, our teacher, was crucified, died,

and rose again, and ascended into heaven, we propound nothing

different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons

of Jupiter." [Footnote: First Apology, Chapter xxi (Anti-Nicene

Library).] Which is another way of saying that the Christian mythus is

very similar to the pagan, and should therefore be equally true.

Pressing his argument further, this interesting Father discovers many

resemblances between what he himself is preaching and what the pagans

have always believed: "For you know how many sons your esteemed

writers ascribe to Jupiter. Mercury, the interpreting word (he spells

this word with a small _w_ while in the above quotation he uses a

capital _w_ to denote the Christian incarnation) and teacher of

all; Aesculapius...who ascended to heaven; one Hercules...and

Perseus;...and Bellerophon, who, though sprung from mortals, rose to

heaven on the horses of Pegasus." [Footnote: Ibid.] If Jupiter can

have, Justin Martyr seems to reason, half a dozen divine sons, why

cannot Jehovah have at least one?

[Illustration: The Unsexed Christ, Naked In the Church of St. Antoine,

Tours, France.]

Instead of producing historical evidence or appealing to creditable

documents, as one would to prove the existence of a Caesar or an

Alexander, Justin Martyr draws upon pagan mythology in his reply to

the critics of Christianity. All he seems to ask for is that Jesus be

given a higher place among the divinities of the ancient world.

To help their cause the Christian apologists not infrequently also

changed the sense of certain Old Testament passages to make them

support the miraculous stories in the New Testament. For example,

having borrowed from Oriental books the story of the god in a manger,

surrounded by staring animals, the Christian fathers introduced a

prediction of this event into the following text from the book of

Habakkuk in the Bible: "Accomplish thy work in the midst of the

_years_, in the midst of the years make known, etc." [Footnote: Hab.

iii. 2.] This Old Testament text appeared in the Greek translation as

follows: "Thou shalt manifest thyself in the midst of _two animals_"

which was fulfilled of course when Jesus was born in a stable. How

weak must be one's case to resort to such tactics in order to command

a following! And when it is remembered that these follies were deemed

necessary to prove the reality of what has been claimed as the most

stupendous event in all history, one can readily see upon how fragile

a foundation is built the story of the Christian God-man.

Let us continue: Abraham Lincoln's associates and contemporaries are

all known to history. The immediate companions of Jesus appear to be,

on the other hand, as mythical as he is himself. Who was Matthew? Who

was Mark? Who were John, Peter, Judas, and Mary? There is absolutely

no evidence that they ever existed. They are not mentioned except in

the New Testament books, which, as we shall see, are "supposed" copies

of "supposed" originals. If Peter ever went to Rome with a new

doctrine, how is it that no historian has taken note of him? If Paul

visited Athens and preached from Mars Hill, how is it that there is no

mention of him or of his strange Gospel in the Athenian chronicles?

For all we know, both Peter and Paul may have really existed, but it

is only a guess, as we have no means of ascertaining. The uncertainty

about the apostles of Jesus is quite in keeping with the uncertainty

about Jesus himself.

The report that Jesus had twelve apostles seems also mythical. The

number twelve, like the number seven, or three, or forty, plays an

important role in all Sun-myths, and points to the twelve signs of the

Zodiac. Jacob had twelve sons; there were twelve tribes of Israel;

twelve months in the year; twelve gates or pillars of heaven, etc. In

many of the religions of the world, the number twelve is sacred. There

have been few god-saviors who did not have twelve apostles or

messengers. In one or two places, in the New Testament, Jesus is made

to send out "the seventy" to evangelize the world. Here again we see

the presence of a myth. It was believed that there were seventy

different nations in the world--to each nation an apostle. Seventy

wise men are supposed to have translated the Old Testament, sitting in

seventy different cells. That is why their translation is called

"_the Septuagint_" But it is all a legend, as there is no evidence of

seventy scholars working in seventy individual cells on the Hebrew

Bible. One of the Church Fathers declares that he saw these seventy

cells with his own eyes. He was the only one who saw them.

That the "Twelve Apostles" are fanciful may he inferred from the

obscurity in which the greater number of them have remained. Peter,

Paul, John, James, Judas, occupy the stage almost exclusively. If Paul

was an apostle, we have fourteen, instead of twelve. Leaving out

Judas, and counting Matthias, who was elected in his place, we have

thirteen apostles.

The number forty figures also in many primitive myths. The Jews were

in the wilderness for forty years; Jesus fasted for forty days; from

the resurrection to the ascension were forty days; Moses was on the

mountain with God for forty days. An account in which such scrupulous

attention is shown to supposed sacred numbers is apt to be more

artificial than real. The biographers of Lincoln or of Socrates do not

seem to be interested in numbers. They write history, not stories.

Again, many of the contemporaries of Lincoln bear written witness to

his existence. The historians of the time, the statesmen, the

publicists, the chroniclers--all seem to be acquainted with him, or to

have heard of him. It is impossible to explain why the contemporaries

of Jesus, the authors and historians of his time, do not take notice

of him. If Abraham Lincoln was important enough to have attracted the

attention of his contemporaries, how much more Jesus. Is it reasonable

to suppose that these Pagan and Jewish writers knew of Jesus,--had

heard of his incomparably great works and sayings,--but omitted to

give him a page or a line? Could they have been in a conspiracy

against him? How else is this unanimous silence to be accounted for?

Is it not more likely that the wonder-working Jesus was unknown to

them? And he was unknown to them because no such Jesus existed in

their day.

Should the student, looking into Abraham Lincoln's history, discover

that no one of his biographers knew positively just when he lived or

where he was born, he would have reason to conclude that because of

this uncertainty on the part of the biographers, he must be more

exacting than he otherwise would have been. That is precisely our

position. Of course, there are in history great men of whose

birthplaces or birthdays we are equally uncertain. But we believe in

their existence, not because no one seems to know exactly when and

where they were born, but because there is overwhelming evidence

corroborating the other reports about them, and which is sufficient to

remove the suspicion suggested by the darkness hanging over their

nativity. Is there any evidence strong enough to prove the historicity

of Jesus, in spite of the fact that not even his supposed companions,

writing during the lifetime of Jesus' mother, have any definite

information to give.

But let us continue. The reports current about a man like Lincoln are

verifiable, while many of those about Jesus are of a nature that no

amount of evidence can confirm. That Lincoln was President of these

United States, that he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, and that

he was assassinated, can be readily authenticated.

But how can any amount of evidence satisfy one's self that Jesus was

born of a virgin, for instance? Such a report or rumor can never even

be examined; it does not lend itself to evidence; it is beyond the

sphere of history; it is not a legitimate question for investigation.

It belongs to mythology. Indeed, to put forth a report of that nature

is to forbid the use of evidence, and to command forcible

acquiescence, which, to say the least, is a very suspicious

circumstance, calculated to hurt rather than to help the Jesus story.

The report that Jesus was God is equally impossible of verification.

How are we to prove whether or not a certain person was God? Jesus may

have been a wonderful man, but is every wonderful man a God? Jesus may

have claimed to have been a God, but is every one who puts forth such

a claim a God? How, then, are we to decide which of the numerous

candidates for divine honors should be given our votes? And can we by

voting for Jesus make him a God? Observe to what confusion the mere

attempt to follow such a report leads us.

A human Jesus may or may not have existed, but we are as sure as we

can be of anything, that a virgin-born God, named Jesus, such as we

must believe in or be eternally lost, is an impossibility--except to

credulity. But credulity is no evidence at all, even when it is

dignified by the name of _faith_. Let us pause for a moment to

reflect: The final argument for the existence of the miraculous Jesus,

preached in church and Sunday-school, these two thousand years, as the

sole savior of the world, is an appeal to faith--the same to which

Mohammed resorts to establish his claims, and Brigham Young to prove

his revelation. There is no other possible way by which the virgin-

birth or the _godhood_ of a man can be established. And such a faith

is never free, it is always maintained by the sword now, and by

hell-fire hereafter.

Once more, if it had been reported of Abraham Lincoln that he

predicted his own assassination; that he promised some of his friends

they would not die until they saw him coming again upon the clouds of

heaven; that he would give them thrones to sit upon; that they could

safely drink deadly poisons in his name, or that he would grant them

any request which they might make, provided they asked it for his

sake, we would be justified in concluding that such a Lincoln never

existed. Yet the most impossible utterances are put in Jesus' mouth.

He is made to say: "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name that will I

do." No man who makes such a promise can keep it. It is not sayings

like the above that can prove a man a God. Has Jesus kept his promise?

Does he give his people everything, or "whatsoever" they ask of him?

But, it is answered, "Jesus only meant to say that he would give

whatever he himself considered good for his friends to have." Indeed!

Is that the way to crawl out of a contract? If that is what he meant,

why did he say something else? Could he not have _said_ just what

he _meant_, in the first place? Would it not have been fairer not

to have given his friends any occasion for false expectations? Better

to promise a little and do more, than to promise everything and do

nothing. But to say that Jesus really entered into any such agreement

is to throw doubt upon his existence. Such a character is too wild to

be real. Only a mythical Jesus could virtually hand over the

government of the universe to courtiers who have petitions to press

upon his attention. Moreover, if Jesus could keep his promise, there

would be today no misery in the world, no orphans, no childless

mothers, no shipwrecks, no floods, no famines, no disease, no crippled

children, no insanity, no wars, no crime, no wrong! Have not a

thousand, thousand prayers been offered in Jesus' name against every

evil which has ploughed the face of our earth? Have these prayers been

answered? Then why is there discontent in the world? Can the followers

of Jesus move mountains, drink deadly poisons, touch serpents, or work

greater miracles than are ascribed to Jesus, as it was promised that

they would do? How many self-deluded prophets these extravagant claims

have produced! And who can number the bitter disappointments caused by

such impossible promises?

George Jacob Holyoake, of England, tells how in the days of utter

poverty, his believing mother asked the Lord, again and again--on her

knees, with tears streaming from her eyes, and with absolute faith in

Jesus' ability to keep His promise,--to give her starving children

their daily bread. But the more fervently she prayed the heavier grew

the burden of her life. A stone or wooden idol could not have been

more indifferent to a mother's tears. "My mind aches as I think of

those days," writes Mr. Holyoake. One day he went to see the Rev. Mr.

Cribbace, who had invited inquirers to his house. "Do you really

believe," asked young Holyoake to the clergyman, "that what we ask in

faith we shall receive?" "It never struck me," continues Mr. Holyoake,

"that the preacher's threadbare dress, his half-famished look, and

necessity of taking up a collection the previous night to pay expenses

showed that faith was not a source of income to him. It never struck

me that if help could be obtained by prayer no church would be needy,

no believer would be poor." What answer did the preacher give to

Holyoake's earnest question? The same which the preachers of today

give: "He parried his answer with many words, and at length said that

the promise was to be taken with the provision that what we asked for

would be given, _if God thought it for our good."_ Why then, did not

Jesus explain that important _proviso_ when he made the promise? Was

Jesus only making a half statement, the other half of which he would

reveal later to protect himself against disappointed petitioners. But

he said: "If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it," and "If it

were not so, I would have told you." Did he not mean just what he

said? The truth is that no historical person in his senses ever made

such extraordinary, such impossible promises, and the report that

Jesus made them only goes to confirm that their author is only a

legendary being.

When this truth dawned upon Mr. Holyoake he ceased to petition Heaven,

which was like "dropping a bucket into an empty well," and began to

look _elsewhere_ for help. [Footnote: Bygones Worth Remembering.--George

Jacob Holyoake] The world owes its advancement to the fact that men no

longer look to Heaven for help, but help themselves. Self-effort, and

not prayer, is the remedy against ignorance, slavery, poverty, and

moral degradation. Fortunately, by holding up before us an impossible

Jesus, with his impossible promises, the churches have succeeded only

in postponing, but not in preventing, the progress of man. This is a

compliment to human nature, and it is well earned. It is also a promise

that in time humanity will be completely emancipated from every phantom

which in the past has scared it into silence or submission, and

"A loftier race than e'er the world

Hath known shall rise

With flame of liberty in their souls,

And light of science in their eyes."

[Illustration: Portion of Manuscript Supposed to Be Copy of Lost

Originals.]

THE CHRISTIAN DOCUMENTS

The documents containing the story of Jesus are so unlike those about

Lincoln or any other historical character, that we must be doubly

vigilant in our investigation.

The Christians rely mainly on the four Gospels for the historicity of

Jesus. But the original documents of which the books in the New

Testament are claimed to be faithful copies are not in existence.

_There is absolutely no evidence that they ever were in existence_.

This is a statement which can not be controverted. Is it conceivable

that the early believers lost through carelessness or purposely

_every_ document written by an apostle, while guarding with all

protecting jealousy and zeal the writings of anonymous persons? Is

there any valid reason why the contributions to Christian literature

of an inspired apostle should perish while those of a nameless scribe

are preserved, why the original Gospel of Matthew should drop quietly

out of sight, no one knows how, while a supposed copy of it in an

alien language is preserved for many centuries? Jesus himself, it is

admitted, did not write a single line. He had come, according to

popular belief, to reveal the will of God--a most important mission

indeed, and yet he not only did not put this revelation in writing

during his lifetime, and with his own hand, which it is natural to

suppose that a divine teacher, expressly come from heaven, would have

done, but he left this all-important duty to anonymous chroniclers,

who, naturally, made enough mistakes to split up Christendom into

innumerable factions. It is worth a moment's pause to think of the

persecutions, the cruel wars, and the centuries of hatred and

bitterness which would have been spared our unfortunate humanity, if

Jesus himself had written down his message in the clearest and

plainest manner, instead of leaving it to his supposed disciples to

publish it to the world, when he could no longer correct their

mistakes.

Moreover, not only did Jesus not write himself, but he has not even

taken any pains to preserve the writings of his "apostles," It is well

known that the original manuscripts, if there were any, are nowhere to

be found. This is a grave matter. We have only supposed copies of

supposed original manuscripts. Who copied them? When were they copied?

How can we be sure that these copies are reliable? And why are there

thousands upon thousands of various readings in these, numerous

supposed copies? What means have we of deciding which version or

reading to accept? Is it possible that as the result of Jesus' advent

into our world, we have only a basketful of nameless and dateless

copies and documents? Is it conceivable, I ask, that a God would send

his Son to us, and then leave us to wander through a pile of dusty

manuscripts to find out why He sent His Son, and what He taught when

on earth?

The only answer the Christian church can give to this question is that

the original writings were purposely allowed to perish. When a

precious document containing the testament of Almighty God, and

inscribed for an eternal purpose by the Holy Ghost, disappears

altogether there is absolutely no other way of accounting for its

disappearance than by saying, as we have suggested, that its divine

author must have intentionally withdrawn it from circulation. "God

moves in a mysterious way" is the last resort of the believer. This is

the one argument which is left to theology to fight science with.

Unfortunately it is an argument which would prove every cult and "ism"

under the heavens true. The Mohammedan, the Mazdaian, and the Pagan

may also fall back upon faith. There is nothing which faith can not

cover up from the light. But if a faith which ignores evidence be not

a superstition, what then is superstition? I wonder if the Catholic

Church, which pretends to believe--and which derives quite an income

from the belief--that God has miraculously preserved the wood of the

cross, the Holy Sepulchre, in Jerusalem, the coat of Jesus, and quite

a number of other mementos, can explain why the original manuscripts

were lost. I have a suspicion that there were no "original"

manuscripts. I am not sure of this, of course, but if nails, bones and

holy places could be miraculously preserved, why not also manuscripts?

It is reasonable to suppose that the Deity would not have permitted

the most important documents containing His Revelation to drop into

some hole and disappear, or to be gnawed into dust by the insects,

after having had them written by special inspiration.

Again, when these documents, such as we find them, are examined, it

will be observed that, even in the most elementary intelligence which

they pretend to furnish, they are hopelessly at variance with one

another. It is, for example, utterly impossible to reconcile Matthew's

genealogy of Jesus with the one given by Luke. In copying the names of

the supposed ancestors of Jesus, they tamper with the list as given in

the book of Chronicles, in the Old Testament, and thereby justly

expose themselves to the charge of bad faith. One evangelist says

Jesus was descended from Solomon, born of "her that had been the wife

of Urias." It will be remembered that David ordered Urias killed in a

cowardly manner, that he may marry his widow, whom he coveted.

According to Matthew, Jesus is one of the offspring of this adulterous

relation. According to Luke, it is not through Solomon, but through

Nathan, that Jesus is connected with the house of David.

Again, Luke tells us that the name of the father of Joseph was _Heli;_

Matthew says it was _Jacob_. If the writers of the gospels were

contemporaries of Joseph they could have easily learned the exact name

of his father.

Again, why do these biographers of Jesus give us the genealogy of

Joseph if he was not the father of Jesus? It is the genealogy of Mary

which they should have given to prove the descent of Jesus from the

house of David, and not that of Joseph. These irreconcilable

differences between Luke, Matthew and the other evangelists, go to

prove that these authors possessed no reliable information concerning

the subjects they were writing about. For if Jesus is a historical

character, and these biographers were really his immediate associates,

and were inspired besides, how are we to explain their blunders and

contradictions about his genealogy?

A good illustration of the mythical or unhistorical character of the

New Testament is furnished by the story of John the Baptist. He is

first represented as confessing publicly that Jesus is the Christ;

that he himself is not worthy to unloose the latchet of his shoes; and

that Jesus is the Lamb of God, "who taketh away the sins of the

world." John was also present, the gospels say, when the heavens

opened and a dove descended on Jesus' head, and he heard the voice

from the skies, crying: "He is my beloved Son, in whom I am well

pleased."

Is it possible that, a few chapters later, this same John forgets his

public confession,--the dove and the voice from heaven,--and actually

sends two of his disciples to find out who this Jesus is, [Footnote:

Matthew xi.] The only way we can account for such strange conduct is

that the compiler or editor in question had two different myths or

stories before him, and he wished to use them both.

A further proof of the loose and extravagant style of the Gospel

writers is furnished by the concluding verse of the Fourth Gospel:

"There are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they

should be written, every one, I suppose that even the world itself

could not contain the books that should be written." This is more like

the language of a myth-maker than of a historian. How much reliance

can we put in a reporter who is given to such exaggeration? To say

that the world itself would be too small to contain the unreported

sayings and doings of a teacher whose public life possibly did not

last longer than a year, and whose reported words and deeds fill only

a few pages, is to prove one's statements unworthy of serious

consideration.

And it is worth our while to note also that the documents which have

come down to our time and which purport to be the biographies of

Jesus, are not only written in an alien language, that is to say, in a

language which was not that of Jesus and his disciples, but neither

are they dated or signed. Jesus and his twelve apostles were Jews; why

are all the four Gospels written in Greek? If they were originally

written in Hebrew, how can we tell that the Greek translation is

accurate, since we can not compare it with the originals? And why are

these Gospels anonymous? Why are they not dated? But as we shall say

something more on this subject in the present volume, we confine

ourselves at this point to reproducing a fragment of the manuscript

pages from which our Greek Translations have been made.[Footnote: See

page 57.] It is admitted by scholars that owing to the difficulty of

reading these ancient and imperfect and also conflicting texts, an

accurate translation is impossible. But this is another way of saying

that what the churches call the Word of God is not only the word of

man, but a very imperfect word, at that.

The belief in Jesus, then, is founded on secondary documents, altered

and edited by various hands; on lost originals, and on anonymous

manuscripts of an age considerably later than the events therein

related--manuscripts which contradict each other as well as

themselves. Such is clearly and undeniably the basis for the belief in

a historical Jesus. It was this sense of the insufficiency of the

evidence which drove the missionaries of Christianity to commit

forgeries.

If there was ample evidence for the historicity of Jesus, why did his

biographers resort to forgery? The following admissions by Christian

writers themselves show the helplessness of the early preachers in the

presence of inquirers who asked for proofs. The church historian,

Mosheim, writes that, "The Christian Fathers deemed it a pious act to

employ deception and fraud." [Footnote: Ecclesiastical Hist., Vol. I,

P. 247.]

Again, he says: "The greatest and most pious teachers were nearly all

of them infected with this leprosy." Will not some believer tell us

why forgery and fraud were necessary to prove the historicity of

Jesus. Another historian, Milman, writes that, "Pious fraud was

admitted and avowed" by the early missionaries of Jesus. "It was an

age of literary frauds," writes Bishop Ellicott, speaking of the times

immediately following the alleged crucifixion of Jesus. Dr. Giles

declares that, "There can be no doubt that great numbers of books were

written with no other purpose than to deceive." And it is the opinion

of Dr. Robertson Smith that, "There was an enormous floating mass of

spurious literature created to suit party views." Books which are now

rejected as apochryphal were at one time received as inspired, and

books which are now believed to be infallible were at one time

regarded as of no authority in the Christian world. It certainly is

puzzling that there should be a whole literature of fraud and forgery

in the name of a historical person. But if Jesus was a myth, we can

easily explain the legends and traditions springing up in his name.

The early followers of Jesus, then, realizing the force of this

objection, did actually resort to interpolation and forgery in order

to prove that Jesus was a historical character.

One of the oldest critics of the Christian religion was a Pagan, known

to history under the name of Porphyry; yet, the early Fathers did not

hesitate to tamper even with the writings of an avowed opponent of

their religion. After issuing an edict to destroy, among others, the

writings of this philosopher, a work, called _Philosophy of Oracles,_

was produced, in which the author is made to write almost as a

Christian; and the name of Porphyry was signed to it as its author.

St. Augustine was one of the first to reject it as a forgery.

[Footnote: Geo. W. Foote. Crimes of Christianity.] A more astounding

invention than this alleged work of a heathen bearing witness to

Christ is difficult to produce. Do these forgeries, these apocryphal

writings, these interpolations, freely admitted to have been the

prevailing practice of the early Christians, help to prove the

existence of Jesus? And when to this wholesale manufacture of doubtful

evidence is added the terrible vandalism which nearly destroyed every

great Pagan classic, we can form an idea of the desperate means to

which the early Christians resorted to prove that Jesus was not a

myth. It all goes to show how difficult it is to make a man out of a

myth.

[Illustration: The Goddess Mother in the Grecian Pantheon.]

VIRGIN BIRTHS

Stories of gods born of virgins are to be found in nearly every age

and country. There have been many virgin mothers, and Mary with her

child is but a recent version of a very old and universal myth. In

China and India, in Babylonia and Egypt, in Greece and Rome, "divine"

beings selected from among the daughters of men the purest and most

beautiful to serve them as a means of entrance into the world of

mortals. Wishing to take upon themselves the human form, while

retaining at the same time their "divinity," this compromise--of an

earthly mother with a "divine" father--was effected. In the form of a

swan Jupiter approached Leda, as in the guise of a dove, or a

_Paracletus,_ Jehovah "overshadowed" Mary.

A nymph bathing in a river in China is touched by a lotus plant, and

the divine Fohi is born.

In Siam, a wandering sunbeam caresses a girl in her teens, and the

great and wonderful deliverer, Codom, is born. In the life of Buddha

we read that he descended on his mother Maya, "in likeness as the

heavenly queen, and entered her womb," and was "born from her right

side, to save the world." [Footnote: Stories of Virgin Births.

Reference: Lord Macartney. Voyage dans 'interview de la Chine et en

Tartarie. Vol. I, P. 48. See also Les Vierges Meres et les Naissance

Miraculeuse. P. Saintyves. P. 19, etc.] In Greece, the young god

Apollo visits a fair maid of Athens, and a Plato is ushered into the

world.

In ancient Mexico, as well as in Babylonia, and in modern Corea, as in

modern Palestine, as in the legends of all lands, virgins gave birth

and became divine mothers. [Footnote: Stories of Virgin Births.

Reference: Lord Macartney. Voyage dans 'interview de la Chine et en

Tartarie. Vol. I, P. 48. See also Les Vierges Meres et les Naissance

Miraculeuse. P. Saintyves. P. 19, etc.]

But the real home of virgin births is the land of the Nile. Eighteen

hundred years before Christ, we find carved on one of the walls of the

great temple of Luxor a picture of the _annunciation, conception and

birth_ of King Amunothph III, an almost exact copy of the

annunciation, conception and birth of the Christian God. Of course no

one will think of maintaining that the Egyptians borrowed the idea

from the Catholics nearly two thousand years before the Christian era.

"The story in the Gospel of Luke, the first and second chapters is,

"says Malvert, "a reproduction, 'point by point,' of the story in

stone of the miraculous birth of Amunothph." [Footnote: Science and

Religion P. 96.]

[Illustration: The Annunciation, Birth, and Adoration of Amenophis of

Egypt, Nearly 2000 Years Before Christ.]

Sharpe in his Egyptian Mythology, page 19, gives the following

description of the Luxor picture, quoted by G. W. Foote in his _Bible

Romances,_ page 126: "In this picture we have the annunciation, the

conception, the birth and the adoration, as described in the first and

second chapters of Luke's Gospel." Massey gives a more minute

description of the Luxor picture. "The first scene on the left hand

shows the god Taht, the divine Word or Loges, in the act of hailing

the virgin queen, announcing to her that she is to give birth to a

son. In the second scene the god Kneph (assisted by Hathor) gives life

to her. This is the Holy Ghost, or Spirit that causes conception....Next

the mother is seated on the midwife's stool, and the child is supported

in the hands of one of the nurses. The fourth scene is that of the

adoration. Here the child is enthroned, receiving homage from the gods

and gifts from men." [Footnote: Natural Genesis. Massey, Vol. II, P.

398.] The picture on the wall of the Luxor temple, then, is one of the

sources to which the anonymous writers of the Gospels went for their

miraculous story. It is no wonder they suppressed their own identity

as well as the source from which they borrowed their material.

Not only the idea of a virgin mother, but all the other miraculous

events, such as the stable cradle, the guiding star, the massacre of

the children, the flight to Egypt, and the resurrection and bodily

ascension toward the clouds, have not only been borrowed, but are even

scarcely altered in the New Testament story of Jesus.

[Illustration: The Nativity of the God Dionysius, Museum of Naples. ]

That the early Christians borrowed the legend of Jesus from earthly

sources is too evident to be even questioned. Gerald Massey in his

great work on Egyptian origins demonstrates the identity of Mary, the

mother of Jesus, with Isis, the mother of Horus. He says: "The most

ancient, gold-bedizened, smoke-stained Byzantine pictures of the

virgin and child represent the mythical mother as Isis, and not as a

human mother of Nazareth." [Footnote: Vol. ii, P. 487.] Science and

research have made this fact so certain that, on the one hand

ignorance, and on the other, interest only, can continue to claim

inspiration for the authors of the undated and unsigned fragmentary

documents which pass for the Word of God. If, then, Jesus is stripped

of all the borrowed legends and miracles of which he is the subject;

and if we also take away from him all the teachings which collected

from Jewish and Pagan sources have been attributed to him--what will

be left of him? That the ideas put in his mouth have been culled and

compiled from other sources is as demonstrable as the Pagan origin of

the legends related of him.

Nearly every one of the dogmas and ceremonies in the Christian cult

were borrowed from other and older religions. The resurrection myth,

the ascension, the eucharisty, baptism, worship by kneeling or

prostration, the folding of the hands on the breast, the ringing of

bells and the burning of incense, the vestments and vessels used in

church, the candles, "holy" water,--even the word _Mass_ were all

adopted and adapted by the Christians from the religions of the

ancients. The Trinity is as much Pagan, as much Indian or Buddhist, as

it is Christian. The idea of a Son of God is as old as the oldest

cult. The sun is the son of heaven in all primitive faiths. The

physical sun becomes in the course of evolution, the Son of

Righteousness, or the Son of God, and heaven is personified as the

Father on High. The halo around the head of Jesus, the horns of the

older deities, the rays of light radiating from the heads of Hindu and

Pagan gods are incontrovertible evidence that all gods were at one

time--the sun in heaven.

[Illustration: Prehistoric Crosses Discovered in Pagan Sepulchres

(Italy).]

THE ORIGIN OF THE CROSS

Only the uninformed, of whom, we regret to say, there are a great

many, and who are the main support of the old religions, still believe

that the cross originated with Christianity. Like the dogmas of the

Trinity, the virgin birth, and the resurrection, the sign of the cross

or the cross as an emblem or a symbol was borrowed from the more

ancient faiths of Asia. Perhaps one of the most important discoveries

which primitive man felt obliged never to be ungrateful enough to

forget, was the production of fire by the friction of two sticks

placed across each other in the form of a cross. As early as the stone

age we find the cross carved on monuments which have been dug out of

the earth and which can be seen in the museums of Europe. On the coins

of later generations as well as on the altars of prehistoric times we

find the "sacred" symbol of the cross. The dead in ancient cemeteries

slept under the cross as they do in our day in Catholic churchyards.

[Illustration: House of Goodness, with Cross. Egyptian, 2000 B. C.]

In ancient Egypt, as in modern China, India, Corea, the cross is

venerated by the masses as a charm of great power. In the Musee

Guimet, in Paris, we have seen specimens of pre-Christian crosses. In

the Louvre Museum one of the "heathen" gods carries a cross on his

head. During his second journey to New Zealand, Cook was surprised to

find the natives marking the graves of their dead with the cross. We

saw, in the Museum of St. Germain, an ancient divinity of Gaul, before

the conquest of the country by Julius Caesar, wearing a garment on

which was woven a cross. In the same museum an ancient altar of Gaul

under Paganism, had a cross carved upon it. That the cross was not

adopted by the followers of Jesus until a later date may be inferred

from the silence of the earlier gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, on

the details of the crucifixion, which is more fully developed in the

later gospel of John. The first three evangelists say nothing about

the nails or the blood, and give the impression that he was hanged.

Writing of the two thieves who were sentenced to receive the same

punishment, Luke says, "One of the malefactors that was _hanged_ with

him." The idea of a bleeding Christ, such as we see on crosses in

Catholic churches, is not present in these earlier descriptions of the

crucifixion; the Christians of the time of Origin were called "the

followers of the god who was hanged." In the fourth gospel we see the

beginnings of the legend of the cross, of Jesus carrying or falling

under the weight of the cross, of the nail prints in his hands and

feet, of the spear drawing the blood from his side and smearing his

body. Of all this, the first three evangelists are quite ignorant.

[Illustration: Pagan Priest of Herculaneum Wearing the Cross.]

[Illustration: Cross of the Chinese Emperor Fou-Hi,2953 Years Before

Christ.]

[Illustration: Discovered in Newgrange, Ireland. An Ancient Pagan

Cross.]

Let it be further noted that it was not until eight hundred years

after the supposed crucifixion that Jesus is seen in the form of a

human being on the cross. Not in any of the paintings on the ancient

catacombs is found a crucified Christ. The earliest cross bearing a

human being is of the eighth century. For a long time a lamb with a

cross, or on a cross, was the Christian symbol, and it is a lamb which

we see entombed in the "holy sepulchre." In more than one mosaic of

early Christian times, it is not Jesus, but a lamb, which is bleeding

for the salvation of the world. How a lamb came to play so important a

role in Christianity is variously explained. The similarity between

the name of the Hindu god, _Agni_ and the meaning of the same word in

Latin, which is a lamb, is one theory. Another is that a ram, one of

the signs of the zodiac, often confounded by the ancients with a lamb,

is the origin of the popular reverence for the lamb as a symbol--a

reverence which all religions based on sun-worship shared. The lamb in

Christianity takes away the sins of the people, just as the paschal

lamb did in the Old Testament, and earlier still, just as it did in

Babylonia.

[Illustration: Used by a Priest of Bacchus, Showing the Cross.]

[Illustration: Engraving of the XI Century.]

[Illustration: Lamb on Cross.]

[Illustration: From a Picture in the Church of Genest. A Lamb Carrying

the Cross.]

[Illustration: The Lamb and the Cross, IX Century.]

To the same effect is the following letter of the bishop of Mende, in

France, bearing date of the year 800 A. D.: "Because the darkness has

disappeared, and because also Christ is a real man, Pope Adrian

commands us to paint him under the form of a man. The lamb of God must

not any longer be painted on a cross, but after a human form has been

placed on the cross, there is no objection to have a lamb also

represented with it, either at the foot of the cross or on the

opposite side." [Footnote: Translated from the French of Didron.

Quoted by Malvert.] We leave it to our readers to draw the necessary

conclusions from the above letter. How did a lamb hold its place on

the cross for eight hundred years? If Jesus was really crucified, and

that fact was a matter of history, why did it take eight hundred years

for a Christian bishop to write, "now that Christ is a real man,"

etc.? Today, it would be considered a blasphemy to place a lamb on a

cross.

On the tombstones of Christians of the fourth century are pictures

representing, not Jesus, but a lamb, working the miracles mentioned in

the gospels, such as multiplying the loaves and fishes, and raising

Lazarus from the dead.

[Illustration: Mosaic of St. Praxedes, V Century, Showing the Lamb

Christ.]

[Illustration: The Lamb Slowly Becoming Human.]

[Illustration: The Lamb Multiplying the Loaves and Fishes, IV Century

Sarcophagus.]

The first representations of a human form on the cross differ

considerably from those which prevail at the present time.

[Illustration: The Lamb Resurrecting Lazarus, IV Century Sarcophagus.]

While the figure on the modern cross is almost naked, those on the

earlier ones are clothed and completely covered. Wearing a flowing

tunic, Jesus is standing straight against the cross with his arms

outstretched, as though in the act of delivering an address.

Frequently, at his feet, on the cross, there is still painted the

figure of a lamb, which by and by, he is going to replace altogether.

Gradually the robe disappears from the crucified one, until we see him

crucified, as in the adjoining picture, with hardly any clothes on,

and wearing an expression of great agony.

[Illustration: Modern Christ.]

[Illustration: Christ and the Twelve Apostles, Carrying Swastikas and

Solar Discs Instead of the Cross. Sarcophagus, Milan.]

THE SILENCE OF PROFANE WRITERS